The Origin of the Species
by TeaOli
Summary: Uhura asks a question. Spock answers as best he can. EDIT: 25 June 2010. Eeek! I can't believe I originally posted this under STXI. Kept wondering about those reviews...  Mea culpa. Complete.


"Where do Vulcan babies come from?"

Half of her expected him to sputter, perhaps even choke on his tea — at the very least she thought he might raise an eyebrow.

"From their parents," he dryly informed her, instead.

She grabbed the depleted pot off of the table and dumped the spent leaves in the recycler. Stifling her frustration and the grimace that went with it, she stood on tiptoe to reach the good stuff he stashed on a high shelf.

If anyone had overheard and asked her "Why the _hell_?" she would have grinned mischievously and claimed "A devil made me do it." (Of course, since they were alone in his quarters, no one overheard, and so no one was going to ask.) The truth was, she just really wanted to know.

She counted him among her closest friends — he knew almost everything about her — but if she was honest with herself, she would be forced to acknowledge that their friendship was not evenly balanced. Sure, she knew plenty of _facts_ about him — things to which very few others were privy — but that wasn't the same thing, and she knew it.

_Besides_... although for months they had been dancing around an attraction she'd long ago concluded was mutual, they'd never so much as touched.

"I'm asking purely out of scientific curiosity," she assured him as her fingertips made contact with the canister.

"No," he retorted, "you are not."

She spun on her toes to face him without getting what she wanted.

Anyone who thought Vulcans were incapable of displaying emotion was sadly misinformed. To her eyes, he appeared a little smug; his expression was… almost predatory. Telling herself she was imaging things, she opted to shake off her discomfort and forge on.

"I haven't been able to access any detailed data on Vulcan reproduction or even courtship rituals."

"As you well know," he said, silkily, "we are a very private people, Nyota."

Her knees got a little weak at the way he said her name, but she refused to let that deter her.

"Spock," she said warningly, confident that he would realize teasing time was over. Either he'd tell her, or he wouldn't, but she wasn't in the mood to pretend they were polite strangers.

"You have not been able to find data pertaining to Vulcan reproduction because such information has not been made available to other species. You have not been able to find descriptions of our courtship rituals because we have none.

"Nyota," he said, repeating her name like he _knew_. Sinuously, he stood… moving lithely… away from the table… and… towards her. "Tell me what you truly wish to know."

Instead of answering, she turned back to the wall of shelves stretched up again. His soft footfalls continued towards her until she could feel the heat emanating from his lean body.

"As my existence attests," he said, a trace of amusement adding the faintest hint of a lilt to his tone, "humans and Vulcans are sufficiently similar reproductively to allow for cross breeding."

Reaching a long arm up and past her, he easily retrieved the tea and placed it in her hands.

Such tangible proof of his existence made breathing somewhat difficult, so she ducked around him and busied her eyes and fingers with scooping out exactly the right amount of desiccated leaves to brew the perfect second pot of tea.

"So," she said in what she hoped was a casual voice, but which her pounding heart warned her was probably shaky and shrill, "your parents, uh…?"

"Worked well together?" he queried. "Yes. Humans and Vulcans… fit, Nyota."

She pressed the leaves into a metal mesh strainer.

"Perhaps," he whispered in her ear, "you would more easily understand my meaning if I were to demonstrate."

The strainer slipped from her fingers, scattering tea leaves all over his work surface.

.

.

"This isn't working." She pushed herself up and scooted over. Upon reaching the edge of the bed, she glared over her shoulder at him. "Were you enjoying any of that at all?"

He pushed himself up until the weight of his torso — his lithe, beautifully sculpted torso — rested on his elbows. Dark eyes slid across her naked shoulder and down her straight back to rest at the place where gently-rounded curves sank into his mattress.

"I was deriving tremendous enjoyment from your ministrations," he answered, "and am extremely disappointed that you have ceased them."

"I didn't realize Vulcans could go to extremes."

"Before tonight, I doubt you had opportunity to abruptly stop performing in a manner which a Vulcan found… extremely pleasing to his person."

Twisting around, she crawled back the way she'd come and _loomed_. "A little visual or verbal confirmation of that pleasure would have been helpful, Commander," she murmured.

"Those are only necessary when both partners are psi-null," he explained unrepentantly. "I think you will find the rest of my demonstration adequately edifying, Lieutenant."

.

.

He shifted his weight onto his right forearm without removing his fingers from her contact points. Firmly grasping his lok in his left hand, he stroked the tip over her opening in dance that left a searing trail of want in its wake.

The aching pleasure-pain mingled with his own, creating a continuous reciprocation of arousal that pushed them both into the stratosphere of desire.

Her eyes closed and her head tipped back, exposing the long column of her throat. He dipped his head to taste her cool fragrant skin.

As she was, at that moment, incapable of coherent thought, the sound which escaped her throat proved to be nearly as accurate an indicator of her pleasure as the meld.

.

.

"Wow," she breathed once she was capable of doing so. "Is it always like that with a Vulcan?"

"I suppose that would depend on the individuals involved."

"Is it always like that with _you_?"

"No."

"Come on, Spock! You mean to tell me your past lovers weren't as blown away as I was?"

"During past encounters, _I_ was not as 'blown away' as I continue to be with you."

Of course she was pleased. Ecstatically flattered, really. _What sane person _wouldn't_ be?_ But she was also a realist and not one to jump to conclusions or count her chickens.

"Is it more intense when the individuals are both telepaths?" she managed to ask in spite of the things long hot fingers were doing to her at the moment.

"I don't know; I have never had sexual intercourse with another telepath."

"But, if each party could share his or her own climax with his or her partner, wouldn't the effect be intensified exponentially in comparison to what is experienced with a non-telepath/telepath partnership?"

"Psionic mathematics was not your strongest subject, was it?"

She wanted to glare again, but _those fingers_! He was being deliberately obtuse; obviously he wanted her to ask a direct question. "Fine," she muttered as if he had said so aloud. "I want to know if Vulcan women have orgasms."

"Yes."

"Why? Where's the logic in that?"

"More so than on Earth, researchers on Vulcan have postulated that the female orgasm is likely to have evolved in order to facilitate conception. While the concept of 'equality for women' led many of your evolutionary biologists to eschew the possibility in the name of social sensitivity, most Vulcan scientists studying these occurrences took a more pragmatic view."

She raised a brow in silent imitation of her brand new lover. He kept doing that thing with his fingers. Her mouth fell open to release an "ohh" of lust; his lifted at the corners in smug satisfaction.

"They have argued that the contractions of the pelvic muscles and the resulting ladle-like movement of the cervix, presumably existed to aid sperm cells in their journey to reach an ovum," he went on (as did his fingers). "Although the female orgasm is believed to be no longer a strict evolutionary necessity to conception, there remains a benefit to the phenomenon."

"And what benefit is that?" she gasped through another "ohh."

"The female's continued willingness to engage in sexual intercourse with her mate."

If he were fully human, Nyota figured, he would have winked at the end of that statement.

* * *

**A/N: **Kind of an AU. Not exactly TOS, but definitely _not_ ST 2009. (**EDIT 4/21/10**: Oops! I previously had TOS and STXI transposed. Mea culpa.) Written in response the ongoing (and annoying) debate over why we "get off."

Disclaimer: I don't own Star Trek, any Star Trek characters or any Star Trek concepts. I also don't get paid for writing about any of those.


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